Thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt yesterday to buy "everything from olive oil to mattresses, from cement to computers". Militants blew a hole in the border fence separating the overcrowded Gaza Strip and Egypt and the population, deprived of goods by an Israeli blockade intended to put a stop to Hamas rocket attacks, took advantage.

"He was returning from Egypt finally in possession of the means of earning the livelihood a seven-month Israeli blockade had gradually denied him: tyres, car batteries, diesel and spare parts, costing some $1,300 (£650)."

One Israeli official told the Herald Tribune that the breach might be a "blessing in disguise" because it would "ease tremendously the pressure on Israel on the humanitarian level ... We don't care if people buy food in Egypt. And terrorists come in anyway." He went on to raise the possibility that Israel would "get out of Gaza and throw away the keys".

Some of that pressure comes from the New York Times, which says the Israeli blockade was only ever going to "feed anger and extremism". And who does it urge to sort out the problem? One Tony Blair, currently in Davos.

"The former British prime minister who is now the western envoy for Palestinian economic development, needs to come up with an aid strategy that ensures Gazans aren't forced to suffer - without rewarding Hamas," says the paper.

"If you bottle up 1.5 million people in a territory 25 miles long and six miles wide, and turn off the lights, as Israel has done in Gaza, the bottle will burst," says the Guardian. "Once again the strategic goal of a two-state solution is obscured by the fog of war."